


Father's Day

by MerakiMela



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien getting the love he deserves, Emotionally Abusive Parenting, Established Relationship, F/M, Gabriel is a shitty parent, Gabriel's perspective, Identity Reveal, background Adrienette - Freeform, gabriel is an idiot, post-reveal, tom and sabine are good parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 19:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerakiMela/pseuds/MerakiMela
Summary: Father's Day is coming up, but Gabriel is finding himself getting less and less love from his son. For the life of him, he couldn't imagine what could have gotten into him. Could it have anything to do with this new girlfriend of his?





	Father's Day

**Author's Note:**

> It's Father's Day here in Australia, so I decided to dedicate a fic to the worst dad in the mlb universe.

Gabriel Agreste always thought his relationship with his son was the strongest thing in the universe; something so durable it could never be damaged and would stand the test of time. He’d even become a supervillain out of love for his son, doing whatever it took to get his mother back.

It was hard to look at Adrien, considering how much he reminded him of Emelie. It also hurt to know, to _feel_ how much Adrien longed to spend time with him. But it wasn’t like he could explain why what he was doing instead was so much more important. Adrien has always trusted him, so he has never worried about his secrets taking a toll on their relationship. Lately however, he had been having doubts. For the past few weeks Adrien’s desire to spend time with him was draining faster than what Gabriel was comfortable with. What’s worse is that he only seemed to be getting happier.

Talking to Nathalie didn’t exactly resolve his confusion. She had explained that Adrien had been getting closer to a girl in his class. Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl who designed the hat that Adrien was wearing the last time he hugged him. Had it really been that long since he hugged his son? Gabriel didn’t understand how getting closer to a girl would have any effect on Adrien’s feelings for his father; gaining romantic love didn’t make you lose familial love. No matter how much attention he was getting from this girl, it would never become more important than the family bonds he had.

Perhaps it was puppy love; his new feelings giving him tunnel vision to everything else in his life. Once again, talking to Nathalie did not help. Apparently, Adrien’s grades and his skill in his extra-curricular activities have only been improving since he had grown closer to this girl. Gabriel did not like the fact that Adrien’s feelings for him were the only victim in the changes that came with his first love. Could it be that Adrien is forgetting about him? Is their indestructible bond deteriorating from neglect?

Testing this theory only caused more anxiety. Gabriel stood in the foyer outside his office, waiting for Adrien to come downstairs. He thought Adrien would be excited to see him and would enjoy going out to a café for breakfast before school. He was not expecting Adrien to brush him off with a hurried announcement that he already had plans as he ran out the front door. It was absolutely infuriating. The absolutely unacceptable level of disrespect that it took for Adrien to barely look at him before leaving. Too busy feeling happy about where he was going to feel bad about his actions. Gabriel thought creating an akuma would help him feel better. It didn’t. During the fight, Ladybug and Chat Noir appeared to be able to read each other’s minds, they were so in sync. It was all over too fast for him to get any satisfaction. When he said as much, Nathalie only laughed at him. She wouldn’t explain why, though. Women are nearly as confusing as sons, it seems.

Gabriel settled in to bed, nervous for what the morning would bring. It would be Father’s Day, something their family used to celebrate. Adrien used wake him up at six in the morning by bouncing excitedly on him, too impatient to wait to give him whatever he had attempted to make for him. These “crafts” were always of atrocious quality and frankly had no place in the estate’s décor. Of course he kept the smaller items, like the drawing of their family, locked away in a cupboard in his office. Gabriel loved Adrien; he just couldn’t understand how something so perfect could make anything so ugly. He told Emelie as much during their seemingly annual argument on one night before Father’s Day. She was once again claiming that it was important that Adrien saw that his father appreciated his gift rather than hiding it and his feelings. Gabriel knew that idea was poppycock. He wouldn’t have been any good at designing if his own parents hadn’t been brutally honest about his childhood art projects. He begged Emelie not to make him lie the next day about whatever awful PVA glue based nightmare Adrien was sure to present to him. He was surprised to find the next day after that last argument that he was not woken by an excited child, but by the sound of Adrien diligently practising the piano. Upon entering his son’s room, he was a little bit relieved to see that what looked like a horrible portrait of himself made out of dried pasta had been thrown in the trash.

_“Adrien? What’s this about?”_

_“My gift this year is that you don’t have to lie about my awful presents ever again.”_

Gabriel remembers being filled with pride; his son understood him so well, even as young as eight.

But now, he feared Adrien wouldn’t even remember that it was Father’s Day, he was so distracted with his new girlfriend.

Gabriel woke with an odd sense of dread. He didn’t allow the feeling to delay him, quickly getting out of bed and getting dressed for the day. In no time, he was ready and seated at the dining table, where Adrien would eventually have breakfast with him. To say it was frustrating that it appeared he was being stood up would be an understatement. To say he was terrified all the same, would be something he would deny vehemently.

“Nathalie!” Gabriel shouted to the empty room. Moments later he heard the familiar sound of her footsteps walking briskly to enter the room.

“Yes Gabriel?”

“Where is my son?” Nathalie winced at his question, before quickly resetting her expression back to her standard appropriately professional and neutral one.

“He told me to tell you that his schedule was too busy to fit you in, but asked me to wish you a happy Father’s Day.” She stated, picking up the small box that had been resting on her tablet, passing it to him before promptly leaving the room. He opened the box to find an elegant looking pen resting on silk lining. Gabriel let out a sigh of relief; Adrien _did_ remember Father’s Day. But this didn’t explain where his son was instead of giving the gift to him in person.

It didn’t take much persuasion to convince Nathalie to take him where she knew Adrien was. She may have a soft spot for the boy, but she was still loyal to him. When the car stopped in front of a pleasant looking bakery near Adrien’s school, Nathalie explained that this was where Adrien’s girlfriend lived. It appeared the bakery was closed, so Adrien must have been in the apartment upstairs. Not quite able to see inside from the ground floor, Gabriel had Nathalie get out one of their new low-detection observational drones that he had commissioned to help him find optimal champions for his akumas. Using the person with the strongest emotions was proving to not be effective, and Gabriel was growing weary of sustaining empathic abilities for so long. He had Nathalie activate the drone and fly it up to the window of the apartment while he held her tablet, which displayed the drone’s camera feed.

The window led into the apartment’s living room, where he saw his son with the girl Marinette, along with two large men, one of them being Adrien’s bodyguard and the other Marinette’s father, if he recalled from when he had met them after the fashion show. He nearly missed his wife seated beside him, she was so small in comparison. They certainly were a colourful family to say the least. The father, Tom Dupain, if Gabriel remembered correctly, was in the process of pulling some sort of garment out of some gift wrapping. Enhancing the footage, he could see that it was an apron, but not a standard one. It was custom made to be large enough to fit the man, has several utility pockets, and also looked to be made out of flame-resistant polyester.

_“Marinette, you made this? You’re amazing, sweetie!”_ He heard Tom’s voice praise through the tablet. Adrien’s bodyguard looked up for a moment, nodding in silent approval of the gift, before going back to playing with the Misterbug and Lady Noir figurines that for some reason still had ribbon bows on. Strange…Gabriel didn’t think that the man had children. Who in the world would have gotten him that gift? Tom stood up from his seat and quickly made his way to his daughter, scooping her up away from Adrien’s side and swinging her around in a tight hug as if she weighed nothing. The girl giggled gleefully at the act until she was gently placed back down. As Tom made his way back to his seat, Marinette looked at Adrien expectantly, gesturing as if to prompt him to do something.

_“Tom?”_ Adrien spoke up, voice soft an uncertain. The man twirled on the spot to look back at him.

_“Yes Adrien?”_

_“N-nothing…”_ Adrien mumbled, eyes dropping to his feet dejectedly. Marinette sunk down into the seat next to Adrien, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, holding a strong gaze and nodding confidently with a smile as she looked into his eyes. He smiled back, before breaking eye contact to turn his gaze to her father. Adrien rose to his feet quickly and awkwardly as he thrusted a poorly wrapped gift box out in front of his body.

“I m-made you something!” Adrien exclaimed a little too loud. After a moment of being startled, a big goofy grin broke out on Tom’s face, before he quickly paced over to Adrien to pry the box out of his frozen fingers. Without hesitating, Tom pulled apart the wrapping and took off the lid. He let out an excited gasp and squeal as he pulled out a horribly misshapen sugar cookie. Gabriel couldn’t even tell what it was meant to be.

_“Did you make these for me?”_ Tom asked with genuine delight.

_“All by himself!”_ Marinette answered, joining Adrien at his side and wrapping an arm around his waist.

_“Sorry they’re not very good. They were meant to be cats, but they went out of shape in the oven. Then I just couldn’t get the icing right and it wouldn’t stop sliding around an – ”_ Adrien’s voice was cut off by Tom throwing his arms around him and picking him up in the same spinning hug he had given his daughter earlier. After a moment of shock, Adrien began hugging back, also laughing as he was spun. When was the last time Gabriel had heard his son laugh like that? The man put Adrien down, but left his enormous hands on his shoulders.

_“Thank you, Adrien! The fact that you made these all by yourself just for me makes these cookies very special. Even though they don’t look perfect, I can tell love and care went into these, so I know they will taste delicious!”_ Tom reassured with a warm smile. Adrien looked as though he might cry, before slamming himself into the man in a tight hug.

The tablet in Gabriel’s hands dropped, but not as hard as his stomach. He never knew he could be so right and so wrong at the same time. Yes, romantic love couldn’t replace familial love, but it wasn’t just romantic love that he had found with this girl. No…**it was so much more.**


End file.
